PLANET (Postal Alpha Numeric Encoding Technique) was used for the U.S. Postal Service. This US Postal Office uses a combination of the POSTNET code and PLANET code to track customer’s piece of mail.

Encoding
PLANET barcodes encodes the data in half- and full-height bars. And the barcode always starts and ends with a full bar (often called a guard rail) and each individual digit is represented by a set of five bars using a two-out-of-five code. In PLANET, the two-of-five are the short bars.

Check Sum
The check digit is based on Mod 10 algorithm. The value of the check digit is that when added to the sum of other digits in the barcode, results in a total that is multiple of 10. For example, the check digit for address code 4012345678901 is 0 since 4+0+1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+1=50 which adds check digit 0 result a sum 50.

USPS PLANET Properties
Besides the properties to general barcode, the following properties belongs to PLANET:

PostnetHeightTall gets or sets tall bar height for Postnet, Planet or USPS Intelligent Mail. Default is 0.127 inch.
PostnetHeightShort gets or sets short bar height for Postnet, Planet or USPS Intelligent Mail. Default is 0.05 inch.
PostnetSpacing gets or sets space the for Postnet, Planet or USPS Intelligent Mail. Default is 0.026 inch.

Planet Character Set
The PLANET barcode is numeric only. The PLANET barcode is either 12 or 14 digits long.

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